Open Thread 2019-27

Heaven forbid that people have to pay a pittance to see/own films that took countless hours of artistry gambled on whether it will break even at the box office.

If that is liberty to you to own the newest Avengers fim on bluray at cost, is there any clearer indication as to the struggle we will have to go to even broach the subject of reopening the avenues of questioning western purpose and meaning?

Is this the underlying reason there's so much chatter reflecting love and admiration for totalitarian and corporate fascist belief systems so long as they are not western? Is this not simply transference of our own desire to somewhere else where we will never experience...thus is pure neurotic fantasy?

Nobody should have any illusion about where China is headed. IN 2050 when their military is built out they may act worse than the Anglo American European's historically. The Silk and Road Initiative appears to me to be a a soft power grab. The roads are leading back to China for resources and trade. They are using the same tactics the West used with the IMF, the World Bank, and similar institutions.

They are creating a technocratic dictatorship that is a model for other nations (Guess who is helping them build that model. It is Israel), there is no tolerance for deviation from the party, their is no religious freedom.

Russia is quite a different situation. They are also recovering from Marxism but not looking to project their power globally other than to have a nuclear arm. They do not have the manpower nor the US dollars to accomplish that anyway. They are heavily threatened by the West when the West should be accepting their role in the world at least to some extent and they should be a welcome European partner while being allowed to keep their independence economically. The Euro trash western elites wants to control Russia economically and they cannot at this time. They will never give up until they have full access to Russian companies and resources.

I personally just hate US foreign policy and the people that drive the system. If we really believed Marxism was a failure we should have stood aside and watched it fail. The West has been the dominate driver of a great deal of destruction outside their borders when they could have really been an egalitarian driver of liberty amongst the nations. They push tolerance and acceptance within their borders but any nation that wants to take some control over their resources or political situation gets crushed.

The financial complex in the West created this state apparatus and uses it to remain wealthy. WWI and WWII were seminal events to create these organizations but dollar diplomacy was around long before WWII. Colonization was a reality.

So we sit here and watch the West in its death throws and bitch about it while we watch China rise up using its extremely talented pool of people that can be socially evolved into a beehive thru technology and social control. I expect the same Western style system from China controlled by an even smaller set of elites but by that time my spirit will have long passed from this world and I do look forward NOT to being here when that happens.

Just to illustrate just how completely offbase your fixation is with the suburban lawn bit, you probably aren't aware at what can happen with a lack of maintenance when it comes to property amd how this can affect neighbors.

There are three things off the top of my head right now which can affirm the use of civil code in neighborhoods and where calling in a nuisance is warranted:

1) weed seed: poa annua and various broad leaf weeds here in the nw are rampant in our lawns and can easily be controlled by proper mowage, irrigation, and fertilizung. I can attest to this because I laid down grass seed in my front and back yard after tilling them both. The back yard came in beautiful with the perennial rye grass winning out over any and all broadleaf weed or annual blue grass. The front lawn, which was unprotected from a fence or trees, came in loaded with weeds and poa. It is called a seed bank and increases when lazy homeowners who shouldn't own a house fail to keep their shit mowed.

2) lack of maintenance will eventually mean vermin which we all agree are a public health concern. A few of my neighbors have what I deemed a nature preserve of a yard where it is a rendezvous for feral cats exploring their sexuality, mosquitos which have arisen from an unkempt swimming pool pit, and rats and mice that dart in and out of tall grass and overgrown brush and make their homes in it. Isn't a stretch to see how important maintenance is when it comes to the yard, is it then?

3) There goes the neighborhood! And "keeping up with the Joneses" are actually useful expressions that keep people to maintain there part of the civil bargain of public man that was at one point in this country important to its moral fabric. One house goes to shit gives license to another to follow suit. Try fixing up your place in front of god and everyone and watch how the creatures will emerge to emulate your moves and try to "keep up."

Why does this all matter? Because we are talking about liberty and our neighbor's roll in it, according to John Stuart Mill, who defined it as enjoying yourself within the limit of not affecting others. Your post is a textbook case as to how people have tossed the term of liberty out with the bathwater. What a sad affair!

But I am still going to call the city on your barking dog or your tall-ass grass.

Thanks to James for the link @ 1 to the Craig Murray piece. The pace on this thread is a speeding train, and I am standing at a country station, but also thanks to b for letting the train through without stopping. At this point things seem to be all coming to a head as far as the arguments go.

I'll just take up the suggestion by PeterAU1 back quite a way that instead of Prosperity equalling Wealth (money) it might better be forumulated as Prosperity=Merit. The thought there was that such an equation better represents what the Chinese and Russians are doing successfully at this point, but I would disagree with that being the best option. I can see it as a truth as far as leadership goes, but for an entire country I would still go with the US Constitution, notwithstanding that comment about 'rich white guys' having formulated it. And I think both Russia and China are undertaking that inclusiveness in their policies. Prosperity and wealth extend to all the people, even those who don't 'deserve' it. Even to the 'deplorables' among us. Provided they are peaceful and supportive, if dumb. It's the only way to go.

Of course my post annoys you. You are the working class equivalent to an Uncle Tom and so my denigration of whatever capitalist plantation owner you happen to worship irritates you. You cling to the fantasy that all you have to do is invent a clever duck call and you can start your own "Duck Dynasty" to rub shoulders with Jeff Bezos and Sheldon Adelson. Standard American delusion. You don't see yourself as working class. You're just a "temporarily embarrassed capitalist," as Steinbeck would say.

Anyway, I do not care at all if you read my posts or not. I do not post them to change you mind, so whether you read them or not is irrelevant.

Throughout history prosperity has held different meanings. For much of it, prosperity for the ordinary meant having sufficient food year round and protection from the elements. The basics of life. Now prosperity means having plenty of currency, being able to purchase toys and investment properties ect.
What was considered prosperity in 1770 1780 era America.

Don't make me laugh with your senseless drivel. I suppose anyone is suspect then who demands fair pay for fair work and not having their intellectual property ripped off by bootleggers. You are an enigma wrapped in a turd my friend.

@denk 110

Then leave or just give up if you are going to throw that typical self-hating claptrap my way. Please don't conflate and muddle the question by always blaming "Americans." I am trying to win it back, man. Spell out another way to raise the issue of globalism!

There was once a compilation online of all the impeachable offences of Bush Two.
There were hundreds of them.

Was he impeached? No.

Should he have been? Yes.

As ought every President since him, and a few before him as well.

As karlof1 has pointed out, every president of the US swears to uphold the Constitution, which is held to be the Good of government. Many have failed to even come close, and not just presidents, but Congress itself, the Supreme Court itself.

And they have not been called to account. The people are faced with Constitutional issues that are no longer papered over. What should they, what can they do?

There are no new winds blowing. Just the old ones with new faces. There always will be.

Blessings on the wind which is spirit, the breath of the planet. Blessings on all this Sunday. May the wind which is true prosperity bring peace to us all, and friendship here at the bar. Out there, the wind takes on a fearsome aspect. It is beginning to rage. Yet even that wind drives the speeding trains of our lives, and sometimes we take for enemies those that are really our friends. So, thanks to all contributing here. And thanks to b again for providing this sanctuary.

Thanks to Peter AU 1 for responding to my expansion of your idea. I will however claim that "Prosperity equals merit" would apply to the Constitutional Congress, because in that time issues of equality were being openly discussed with respect to all citizens, not just the ones of property who were debating the matters of good governance. 'The People Shall Judge' was being enshrined into law, and that didn't just mean persons of property, though indeed slavery was endemic at the time. It applied to all citizens by birth or naturalization, and expended to current times to give all human beings such respect with the institution of the United Nations. The Constitution I am upholding isn't that original one, which was just a first step founded on enlightenment principles; it is the ongoing refabricated one that conforms more to the ideals of the founders than their practical necessities at the time. You could say it is in men's hearts that it resides currently, in the hearts of those around the world who have taken and remolded it to their needs.

They have done this meritoriously, indeed. But they don't say in doing so, "we the meritorious" or "we the property holders" or "we the white men" or even "we the majority". They say "we the people".

But I won't quibble, Peter. I like your idea of shifting to merit, because what the current US leadership is about is power, and that's a far, far different kettle of very putrid fish, which I know we agree upon.

@juliania... thanks for your posts! i like @111 peters response to you...

i was thinking about values and how people have different values.. what is of value to one person, might not be to another.. obviously this is a complicated area to navigate when trying to understand other people or other cultures.. the concept of ethnocentricity is a good one.. we all harbour illusions of some sort or the other.. the idea that the usa would be held accountable, or that the different presidents would be held accountable for as @110 denks notes - would be refreshing and might imply a change in attitude.. it hasn't happened.. in fact, the same forces are wanting to kill or suppress those who shine a light on it - assange, manning, snowden and etc..

so, for me the world seems like a dark place at the moment.. it would be nice to think the sun is going to come up sometime soon, or to pin my hopes on some alternative to neoliberalism and western leadership or what substitutes for it here, but personally i am inclined to see it like @104 dltravers too, and not convinced of the beauty and magnanimous nature of china.. i hope i am proven wrong, as they definitely appear in the ascendancy here..

william gruff.. thanks for your commentary.. always a pleasure to read you!

Nonstop news about the psychological warmongering policy that will only increase the surmountable hatred for the US Murder Inc.

A War with Iran is an impossibility. The desperate and frustrated B-Team, War-Dog-Bolton and the Fat-Bouncer-Pompeo need to find a new job.

Comparing Iran to Iraq for war loving dummies:

1)Iraq is 168,754 mi² and Iran is 636,400 mi²; that is, Iran is geographically almost 4 times bigger then Iraq.

2)Iraq’s population when invaded was 26 million. Iran’s population today is 84 million.

3)Base on the population of Iran, the US would need 2.4 million troops to occupy Iran.

4)The US total military personnel count is about 2,141,900, of whom 1, 281,900 are active duty and the rest reservists.

5)Iran can already mobilize at least 1.5 million paramilitary “Basij” forces for guerrilla warfare. This is in addition to over 500,000 active duty military personnel.

6)Bush found international allies for his illegal invasion of Iraq, including Britain and Spain. No one in Western Europe would join Trump in his illegal invasion of Iran, making the US isolated and causing it to look like a unilateralist bully.

7) Russian, China, Turkey, Iraqis, Syrians, the Hazaras of Afghanistan, Hezbollah, other resistance groups, and some 40 million Shiites of Pakistan will support Iran.

8) Hezbollah and Hamas would be more then happy to teach the apartheid, occupying entity a lesson it will never forget. Israel cannot sustain a conflict for more than 6 days (General Golan’s estimate), particularly if it involves multiple fronts.

If President Bolton and Pompeo want a war with Iran, they should join the military and be the first on the frontline. A draft of all heavily medicated, grotesquely over-weight and low IQ yanks should also start, because a war with Iran, is the mother of all wars.

For those who do in fact prefer an analysis of the Fed from a conservative viewpoint, I wholeheartedly recommend G. Edward Griffin's substantial tome “The Creature From Jekyll Island” and from the left, Ellen Brown's “Web of Debt.”

Also thanks to dltravers for an excellent comparison of Russia and China as presently constituted - what I see for both these countries is that they conform to what is needed in the world at this present time for people who are suffering or have suffered under poor leadership such as that entrenching itself in the US at this present moment.

Certainly it is possible such as these will deteriorate under future leaders just as ours has done. It might be, though, that these new entity governmental outreaches are flexible enough to have more important issues such as the climate change we now begin to encounter wherever we live. It's going to change priorities for humankind, there is just no doubt now that it will. And co-operation is going to be the only way to deal with something of such magnitude. Having a nice lawn won't be looking so important then. Air to breathe, water to drink, food on the table - or on the floor for that matter! And a roof over one's head, over everyone's head.

That's what the right to the pursuit of happiness is all about. For all.

And I think both Russia and China are undertaking that inclusiveness in their policies. Prosperity and wealth extend to all the people, even those who don't 'deserve' it.

IMHO, what many see as a built-in cultural superiority inherent in China and Russia is in reality more a reflection of the different stages of capitalist development at this particular historical epoch as opposed to say the 19th to mid 20th century Europe and US. The development stages in my mind are roughly aligned but the surrounding historical circumstances are vastly different.

The world as a whole is more enlightened today. Technology is hugely advanced worldwide, education, medicine, you name it, are sreading globally (yes, through BRI). In fact, a counter argument is made to the investment class by economic historians that far from being in steep decline, capitalism is still in the midst of its golden age and surging anew post the great recession, with one of the more telling phenomena the capitalist financial seeding of China's miraculous economic growth resounding through the global markets and in turn seeding demand and growth in developing countries.

History doesn’t exactly repeat itself, but it does run in cycles. One of the most robust theories of such cycles was articulated by economic historian Carlota Perez, in her influential book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (Edward Elgar, 2002). It suggests that humanity can get through the current period of upheaval and economic malaise and enter a new “golden age” of broad economic growth, if the world’s key decision makers act in concert to help foster one.

This may seem far-fetched, but it’s happened four times before. We are in the midst of the fifth great surge (as Perez calls them) of technological and economic change since the Industrial Revolution. The last one, the age of oil, automobiles, and mass production, lasted most of the 20th century and still shapes many people’s attitudes. Our current surge started around 1970 and has rolled out information and communications technology around the world: It is the age of the computer and the Internet...

Funding provided not out of the goodness of wealthy caucasian hearts most certainly but for the usual reasons: exploitation of resources to maximise profits and wealth of the global elite class.

There is nothing of which I'm aware points to this same cycle not repeating as China fully attains the age of imperialism and advances its footprint, again not out of the inherent goodness of Asian hearts but also for the usual reasons: exploitation of resources to maximise the profits and wealth of the global elite class.

It's worth reading this article in full. But here's an very little known fact about India from it for the people who I know for certain won't read it:

And these GDP figures are dubious anyway. Back in 2015, India’s statistical office suddenly announced revised figures for GDP. That boosted GDP growth by over 2% pts a year overnight. Nominal growth in national output was now being ‘deflated’ into real terms by a price deflator based on wholesale production prices and not on consumer prices in the shops, so that the real GDP figure rose by some way. Moreover, this revision was not applied to the whole economic series, so nobody knows how the current growth figure compares with before 2015. Also the GDP figures are not ‘seasonally adjusted’ to take into account any changes in the number of days in a month or quarter or weather etc. Seasonal adjustment would have shown India’s real GDP growth well below the official figure. A better gauge of growth may be found in the industrial production data. And that has just hit zero.

And here's an article published in the Global Times (the CCP's extraofficial tabloid) about what they think is the main difference between their country and India:

Chinese and Russian elites are not responsible for the coups/attempted coups and humanitarian disasters in Russia (in the 1990s after end of Cold War), Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela, Palestine, etc. Is it their culture or that just haven't had the opportunity to kill and subjugate foreign people during the last 50 years? Does it really matter?

The AZ Empire seeks global domination and the donkey asstroll carries water for the Empire.

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It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

Yes, james, I agree with you - we probably won't see it, all we have are the earliest hints as things have gone terribly wrong so quickly. And indeed the problems can trace back, all the way back to the founders of the US. We can pick up on their frailties and on their insularities and imperfections. Certainly what they made wasn't the be all and end all; it was only the beginning. We don't really have progress as such because all the way through history precious things are being lost, brave men slaughtered needlessly, women and children also - it's a sorry tale if you only look at all the destruction, overwhelming. America never was great; it was always trying to be great. It was, at moments, aspiring to be Camelot. No longer.

Maybe just the inclusive nature of the two world movements that seem to have traction at the moment, Russia's and China's is what we have to be hopeful about, and I myself hope there are undercurrents of that inclusivity at work in below the surface relationships of the US with those countries. I've indirectly got a soft spot for them because their national blood has infused my own family. I know that counts for little in the great scheme of things; but on a personal level, I love my children and grandchildren for that intermingling. That's a globalism I can support.

juliania
Your constitution is one of the best but that has not prevented the US from becoming what it is today. The biggest threat to peace and preventer of peace in the world today.

The now meaningless words splashed about by the US democracy liberty freedom dignity ect.
Guano, the unelected, self appointed president of Venezuela will return democracy, freedom and dignity to Venezuela. The Ukraine revolution of freedom and dignity...
The US always targeting an individual, the leader of a country. The exceptional nation.
All this stems back to the era of the American revolution when the newborn US was exceptional for its time, when much of or all of Europe had hereditary monarchs and aristocrats with hereditary titles.
US culture still views the outside world from the late seventeen hundreds veiw point.
People with cultures very different from the western or European cultures were excluded from this new found equality.
The sociopaths the US consistently elevate to power and leadership.
All of this can be found at the very foundation of US culture. It is a culture that has been unable to change as the world has changed.

The UK should reject extradition of Assange to Sweden as the charges are politically motivated and are likely a ruse for getting Assange to USA with few conditions on his prosecution.

The UK should also reject extradition of Assange to USA because the US computer crime charges are also politically motivated and there are human rights issues that take precedence including: his confinement is likely to be torturous, press freedom must be upheld.

The establishment does not want the above to happen. It seems clear that there is a determined push to extradite Assange to Sweden. And squashing discussion of the 'temporary surrender' mechanism which drove Assange to seek Asylum seven years ago is the primary way that they are clearing the way for Assange's extradition to Sweden. Because only public protest will stop a miscarriage of justice.

Alt-media should not be silent about how public opinion is being manipulated - especially if they are not themselves subject to a D-notice.

Why have lawns in the first place? Their original purpose was for grazing by animals like horses and cattle. But now they're useless. Why not use the space and soil for something useful, like vegetable gardens?

What is the worth of anyone's opinion if you can get it by simply turning on the TV?

This is always a strong clue for me where people are coming from. Why would any sincere and intelligent person ever go to online fora simply to regurgitate corporate media narratives? More importantly, why would any intelligent person take regurgitated corporate mass media narratives seriously?

Aside: I find it amazing the amount of expertise people can develop about the world when they have never left their mom and dad's basement or the trailer park the moved into after leaving their mom and dad's basement.

NemesisCalling @112 sez: "...fair pay for fair work and not having their intellectual property ripped off..."

Are you so simple as to believe that the workers who manufacture intellectual property are the ones who get a cut of the sales? I am guessing then that you have never produced any intellectual property yourself otherwise you might understand how that works. Of course, judging by the quality of your posts you may not be qualified to produce any intellectual property that a capitalist would care to sell.

Anecdotally I don't think that millennials or Generation Z buy into the America ExceptionalismTM nearly to the extent of Generation X or Boomers. Belief in American ExceptinalismTM is likely heavily correlated with evangelical Christianity, which I view as a declining belief system. I also think that the ubiquitous study abroad programs increase their praticipants awareness that perhaps our standard of living, attitudes and healthcare system are not exceptional, at least in a good way.

"The Gallup poll isn’t calibrated by generations, exactly, but it’s hard to miss the trend here: Of Americans 65 and up – Boomers and Silents, mostly -- a full 64 percent say they are “extremely proud” to be Americans. That number declines as poll subjects get younger, until it’s all the way down to 43 percent for the youngest cohort (18 to 29, which is a solidly millennial category.)"

It's unfortunate that the thread has been, I assume,
deliberately wrecked by the previous poster, since no
apology has been forthcoming.

In answer to Peter at 135, I would agree with you
as far as saying that out of the American
revolution, unlike the Russian or even the French
sprang a dialogue wherein a conscious effort was
made to create a government that would take the
ideals of the enlightenment period and place them
in the hands of an admittedly limited democratic
society. They took what was in their eyes a flexible
working model, while abolishing what was not. It
is only very recently that the ideals have been
trampled upon - this was not founded as a Christian
nation. It is in the Constitution specifically
stated that it is not a religious document. I say
as a Christian, I am very glad of that. To caesar
what is caesar's; to God what is God's.

I really don't know what is meant by culture
in the current context. I do know we are now once
again, we the people, subjects whose will can be
ignored. Our universal will as a people casting
votes in 2000 was subverted by the Supreme Court
itself in that year, and Bush was declared
president. From then on elections have been
in the hands of the elite. Is that now our
culture?

We willed for Obama to do what he said
he would do, and we voted for him in huge
numbers. Young people again, black and
white. We expected him to do what he said
he would do, restore democracy, end the
wars. He did not. He doubled down on
the executive powers Bush and Cheney
made institutional. Culture?

Huge crimes have been committed by the
US in a distortion of its founding
principles. I say it is a distortion
and the public who vote or occupy or
protest making the peaceful attempt
to express their will have said it also.
Those in power know this.

Perhaps we again are Greeks - not the
main characters in the tragedies, but
the chorus. Telling our tale of woe
to any that come after:-
"Sing sorrow, sorrow; but good win out in the end."

My deepest apologies about that. I rarely post here, and even more rarely post Http links (they show fine on my firefox browser so I unfortunately ignored guidance on posting them, but I know that Circe has complained).
I should also clarify that I forgot the word "not" in my posting above and here is a corrected sentence: " I also think that the ubiquitous study abroad programs increase their participants awareness that perhaps our standard of living, attitudes and healthcare system are not exceptional, at least not in a good way.

The dystopian Chinese technological dictatorship system is either happening or not happening. It is being built or not being built. MSM be dammed. Is it true? Yes or No? If true they are either marketing it to other countries or they are not marketing it to other countries. It is true or false? Real or fake? Somewhere in the middle between true or false? Show me something that I can hang my hat on.

Ah, let me turn the lights on so I can see what I am doing in this dark dank basement. That might help, the glow of this screen is killing me softly.

Thanks for your replies juliania.
What is happening in the US may have only become more blatant in the last few years.
Back in the early sixties, the joint chiefs of staff put up operation Northwoods. Kennedy refused it. That they felt confident putting a proposal like that to the president meant that this is the sort of thing US presidents would consider. Operation Northwoods involved placing bombs on US passenger planes and ships then blaming the terrorist acts on Cuba. The original documents can be found on the internet and I think there is an entry in wikipedia.
USS liberty can be found at Pat Lang's He has read the radio intercepts of the Israeli attack. karlof1 although he researches US history has found something just recently that has very much shocked him. The US POW's left in Vietnam to die after the war for domestic political reasons.
For the US, I think it goes back a long way, only now it is becoming more blatant.

In australia the only instances I know of at the moment was the killing of five australian journalists in east Timor because Australia had done a deal with Indonesia for the East Timor oil and gas fields.
Second was MH17. PM Abbott had the narrative ready to go for when the plane was shot down. It was watching the time line of events, Australia apparently could not go to the crash site until our good friend porky and the Ukraine rada passed a law allowing us to do so. This was held up because the Rada had decided to take a break for a week or two. When EU capitulated to US demands to sanction Russia, the honourable representative of the Rada decided they had had a long enough break and passed the law. On the day that Australia and the Dutch were officially allowed to go to the crash site a uki armoured column pushed through to the crash site and sporadic fighting and shelling commenced in that area.
At that point I realised my government was in on the shoot down. It was quite a shock to me.
In the weeks after that, PM Abbot put up a monument for the Australians on MH17 and layed a wreath there for his victims.

Try this by a real expert on China, Jeff Brown at the Greanville Post: "China’s public Social Credit System versus the West’s secret Panopticon". (I'll drop the link in a following post - I think Greanville triggers moderation.)

Be warned however that to stipulate that any particular thing in China is "either happening or is not happening" is really not a good way to approach China. There is much depth in that society, and in my own experience of learning more about it, I find that the mores of another society are not helpful to understanding the whole of China.

One must understand what the Chinese themselves think about how a good society should operate, and evaluate current developments against that benchmark.

Jeff Brown's single article may not give enough understanding. But browsing through Greanville's archives of Brown, and Unz's archives of Godfree Roberts, as well as Ramin Mazaheri's superb work on China at the Saker, would begin to show the real China. Brown's book, "China is Communist, Dammit!" is also a good primer on that nation

One thing is abundantly clear - nothing written in the west is in any way close to a true understanding of China.

PCR
'Only a deranged person could believe anything any Western government says.
But the Western world has a huge number of deranged people. There are
plenty of them to validate the next official lie. The ignorant fools
make it possible for Western governments to continue their policy of lies
that are driving the world to extinction in a war with Russia and China.'